WHO: Cardiac Disease Leading Cause of Deaths in India

UdaipurTimes, Oct 7, 2026 - A latest World Health Organisation’s (WHO) report identifies a major shift in the leading causes of death in India over the past two decades. According to the WHO report of 2023, cardiovascular diseases affecting the heart’s arteries are now the leading cause of death in the country, followed by non-communicable diseases such as COPD, stroke and diabetes.

This shift highlights the growing impact of lifestyle-related and age-related diseases in the country. Cardiac illnesses and diabetes are increasingly becoming high-risk diseases. Dementia has risen from 19th to 5th in 23 years while diabetes deaths have more than doubled.

The WHO Global Health Estimates (GHE) report highlights that overall life expectancy is improving, but people are spending more of their final years living with illness, disability or other health problems. 

In 2023 diseases affecting the heart’s arteries accounted for approximately 138.5 deaths per 100,000 population, says the report. Two decades ago, however, infectious diseases such as TB, diarrhoeal diseases and other respiratory infections were among the leading causes of death. Although the burden of these infectious diseases has declined, they still remain among the major causes of death in the country.

In 2019, life expectancy at birth dropped sharply from 70.5 years to 68.1 years in 2021. And then the country regained 2.9 years of expected lifespan reaching 71 years in 2023. Improved acute healthcare delivery and emergency clinical services can be cited as responsible for this rebound.

Road injuries was the eight leading cause of deaths among males in India in 2023. In females, fatalities owing to falls was the eighth biggest cause of deaths.

With Media Inputs